Shopping for a CEO's Fiancee (7 page)

“You two don’t remember any of this?” She looks at Josh. “You don’t remember hitting on me?”

Josh goes from pale to the color of fresh snow.

Amanda folds in half with laughter, then begins moaning with pain, holding her head. “Josh
hit on
you? Josh can’t look at a vagina without doing an Exorcist imitation! He would never hit on a woman!”

“His exact words were, ‘Hey, baby, I’d love to see your vagina dentata. Show Daddy some teeth.’”

Josh faints. Drops to the floor like a sack of bones and Velveeta, resting quietly next to Chuckles, who stands up, still on the leash, and begins head butting Josh with his cone.

Which still says “WILL SLEEP WITH PUSSY FOR FOOD” on the side in Sharpie. My stomach chooses this moment to growl.

At that exact moment, a goat walks by, sees Josh, and faints. Now we know Josh’s spirit animal.

I grab my phone and text Jed, the head of security at Litraeon.

I text:
Goat located next door. Send goat retrieval crew.

Geordi bends to help Josh, while Amanda tries to laugh and manage her headache.

“Josh is part goat!” Amanda declares, snickering and groaning in alternating currents.

Kari and I are the only two reasonably functional people in the room.

Bzzzz.

Jed texts back:
Sir, we don’t have a goat retrieval crew. Suggestions?
 

I reply:
Ask Brona.
 

There. Done. See? Being CEO is easy. You make everyone else do all the work you don’t want to do. That’s leadership.

“What was the name of the place? Where are the marriage licenses?” Amanda asks.

The goat stands up and wanders off toward the macaron case. Josh is still on the floor, but he sits up, revived by Geordi, who is feeding him sips of coffee.

“Love Me Tenderly was the chapel. Some strange woman with auburn hair mumbling about bagpipes and $700,000 was the one in charge of your paperwork.”

“Marie!” Amanda hisses.

“She wouldn’t be crazy enough to file them, would she?” Josh asks, his voice faint.

Amanda and I give him twin looks that make him add quickly, “Okay, okay, I know she’s more than crazy enough. I mean—she didn’t go to the license bureau and really file them. Right?”

“And did we—” he points between himself and Amanda—“have a marriage license drawn up?”

“The woman only had one in her hand, but a bunch sticking out of her purse.
You
had two ceremonies, actually.” Kari looks at Amanda with suspicion. “I didn’t marry a dog, but you married a cat.”

“I
what
?”

“You insisted on marrying a cat you kept calling Charles Kulls. Said his nickname was Chuck.” She looks down at Shannon’s cat and wrinkles her nose, reading the Cone of Shame. “Is this the cat? Because you could do better. He looks like he has mange.”

Chuckles glares at her like Hannibal Lecter staring at Clarice through the bars.

Josh stands, blinking hard, looking like a white owl. Geordi’s next to him, their fingers threaded, holding hands. Even if I am married to Josh, I think he has other romantic prospects.

“Chuck Kulls?” I can’t keep the snicker out of my voice. Amanda punches me, hard, in the breastbone. I deserve it.

“First you married him—” Kari points to Josh, “and then good old Chuck.”

“I did not marry a cat,” Amanda says flatly.

“She can’t marry Chuckles,” Josh adds. “He’s neutered.”

“Why would that stop someone from getting married?”

“We’re talking about a human-cat marriage, people,” I say, exasperated.

“Not because of that,” he says pointedly. “Because Amanda wants kids. Four, to be exact. Two boys and two girls. She’s talked about it forever and—”

Amanda’s sucker punch folds him in half.

“Four kids!” I choke out as I watch Josh with a detached awareness. “
Four?
” I look at her hips, assessing. They’re nice and wide. She could produce plenty of McCormick children. Big heads tend to run in our family.

Case in point: Declan.

She shrugs. “That was before I married a cat. A girl can dream, right?”

“You plan to have them in litters?”

Her eyes meet mine. For the first time in this madcap race to figure out whether we’re married, who we’re married to, and what happened last night and this morning, I feel a sense of peace.

“Injured husband over here!” Josh rasps.

“You’re not my husband!” Amanda and I shout in unison.

Kari gives us a series of looks that make her face shift, like she’s living in stop-action animation. Maybe my brain creates the effect. What’s the half-life of illicitly-slipped-in-wedding-wine mescaline?

“He’s mine, anyhow,” Geordi hisses. Rainbow Brite bares his teeth at me. Not only is he wearing a lip ring, but he appears to have his
gums
pierced.

“Isn’t he your boss?” Josh says out of the side of his mouth.

Geordi tips his chin up. “I don’t care. Love means sacrifice.”

“Love?” Josh gasps, looking down at Geordi with wide, emotion-filled eyes. “You love me? How can you love me? We only met last night!”

“I didn’t say I’m
in
love with you. Just that there’s, you know—” Geordi reaches for Josh’s hand and watches it, suddenly shy. “A spark.”

“A spark?” Josh’s voice goes low.

Chuckles stands up and begins head-butting Geordi’s shin, looking at Kari. If Chuckles had fingers, two would be pointed at Kari in an
I see you
gesture.

“Let’s get going. We need to find Marie,” I say to Amanda, wrapping my arm around her waist. Kari cocks one eyebrow.

“‘We need to find Marie’ is not part of your vocabulary, Andrew,” Amanda says.

“It is now.”

Chapter Six

I’ve never been inside the spa here at Litraeon. I have my hairstylist and groomer back home. My treatments are done in my office, away from prying eyes. Yes, men get aesthetic treatments, too. When you’re a CEO and the paparazzi
click click click
, one stray hair becomes fodder for negative media.

The only reason I let Amanda drag me downstairs is because our security detail keeps the press out of Litraeon. Being this hungover means that no amount of lighting can save us from bad pictures.

“My God! You look like Lucifer himself took you home and chained you to a wall, with tentacles entering every orifice!” shouts an accented voice.

I look at Amanda, whose face is surprisingly angelic, ethereal and captive, as she searches the room for the source of that statement.

“Lüq?” she whispers, enraptured. I straighten.

She’s never said
my
name with that kind of reverence. She’s come damn close a few times in bed, but I think calling me
God
was justified then.

I have zero desire to see Lüq again, and the idea of a conversation with hu and Marie at the same time makes me want to rip my hair out, strand by strand.

Which would reduce the need for any grooming treatments for a while, but leave me looking like The Rock, muscles and all.

“Entheogenic Twins! How are you, Le Hawk?”

My fingers curl into fists as Amanda embraces Lüq, hu’s face calm and appreciative as hu’s hands sink into Amanda’s body, caressing and touching her like hu has a right to do so. Lüq’s got to be my dad’s age, right? Hu isn’t my competition.

“You are the most beautiful creature in this resort,” Lüq says to her, pulling back and stroking her hair.

“That’s my line,” I say. I’m not joking.

“You are
orange
,” hu declares, examining my face under the bright lights next to a fountain that has a strange, salty musk scent. “Evangi! Gagai!”
Snap snap
. “Get Mr. McCormick in the hot seat immediately!”

Hot seat?

A tiny little pixie of a girl with enormous eyes brings me a latte and we follow Amanda and Lüq. I take a sip. Not bad. a little watery, and the milk tastes sweet. Must be skim. I take a bigger gulp and wonder if Declan and Shannon are right.

Is the coffee next door better?

I hold out my palms in protest. “I’m not here for a treatment. We’re looking for Marie.”

“Marie?” Hu shudders. “That vile woman who is poor Mr. Declan McCormick’s mother-in-law? She is not here, but let us delight you with a surprise of self-care and compassion for your poor little pores!” Hu’s fingers flutter to my jaw. I stiffen, but let hu, wanting to gauge how far hu will go.

Studying people is a crucial part of being a CEO. In fact, it’s quality #1. You have to be able to map out people and understand their motivations and needs in any given situation so that you can exert authority.

“What did you do to them? They cry out in pain, my ears hearing them, the torture too much.” Hu’s voice goes falsetto. “Help us, Lüq! We are so dry and cramped, we need to be scratched smooth!”

He’s talking about my pores like they’re balls.

If he’s hearing my pores screaming in agony, then the entheogenic wine makes more sense. I look around for an empty bottle.

“Just go with it. Trust me. But don’t drink the hot spring water,” Amanda whispers in my ear, right before a tall, lithe woman wearing eye jewelry yanks me into another room.

“What?” I look through the threshold between the rooms. 

Amanda gives me a little wave as Lüq undresses her.

Undresses.

“Hold on!” Definitely time to exert authority. Maybe I’ve underestimated hu. Lüq’s hands are on Amanda’s creamy, bare shoulders, and as her shirt slides down around her waist, she stands in the doorway wearing only a bra, the mist from what looks like a pool behind her curling around her, making her look like a Siren from Greek mythology.

I’ve got a siren going off in my own body all right. In my pants.

Which are being stripped off me by a woman who is wearing eye jewelry.

“Whoa, there! That’s my girlfriend’s job!” I choke out.

“Americans,” she mutters.

As I bat at her hands and try to maintain some sense of control and dignity, Amanda’s bra comes off. She’s half naked, twenty feet from me, and Lüq is helping her finish.

The same woman whose worst fear was being naked in public is undressing willingly in front of my spa manager.

Did we just have an entheogenic latte? Because this cannot be happening.

Pushing the
Blade Runner
chick’s hands aside, I march over to Amanda, my pants undone and belt clicking as it hits my fly. My hands are on her shoulders, brushing Lüq’s aside, as I turn my head and look at her.

She is enchanted by the pool before us, a hot spring designed to look like a rainforest.

And I am enchanted.

By her.

“Get out,” I say through gritted teeth. Lüq leaves instantly, abandoning Amanda to me.

As it should be.

“Marie’s not here, Amanda. Let’s go.” My mouth says
let’s get out of here
, but my hands say
breasts
.

Just...breasts.

Beautiful, slightly orange breasts that are bare in front of me, the hot spring mist wafting into the space between us, which I remove the second my hands find the soft, slight weight of her deliciously bare skin. They rest in my palms, a little larger than the span of my fingers, abundant and ripe.

Her sigh makes me glad my belt is undone, my zipper lowered, because I have room for the growing need that blooms when she sighs like that.

“Isn’t it beautiful here?” she asks, looking out at the lagoon-like pool. We’ve designed this part of Litraeon to be an oasis, a hothouse for orchids and stress relief, a place where women can hide from the cares of the world.

I stare at her chest, the rosy nipples tightening under my touch. “Yes.”

“I meant the hot spring.”

“I’ve got something hot that’s about to spring on you.”

“You make everything so porny.”

I frown. “Your point is...”

“This is bliss.”

I squeeze. “Sure is.”

“Not my breasts!”

“I beg to differ.”

“I mean....this. This place. It’s enchanted and magical. You can float and relax, crawl into a part of yourself where no one needs anything from you.”

“Like sex.”

“That’s how sex feels for you?”

“Yes.”

She frowns, eyes clouding with confusion as she looks up at me. Both of my hands are planted on her breasts like her nipples are magnets and I am the Iron Giant.

One part of me certainly is.

“But during sex, you do want and need something from the other person. Isn’t that the point of sex?”

“Not the same as being in the world. With sex, you give so much that eventually you get back what you need.”

“That’s really how you view sex?” She moves closer, my fingertips grazing up. Her skin is wet and yielding, the room’s heat making her glow.

“With you, I do.”

She sinks against me, our lips meeting, and I take a step back to catch my balance as she pushes against me, my hard-on pressing against her hip, her bare breasts crushed between my chest and my palms.

And then we tip.

That’s not a metaphor for a deep, layered kiss that transports us emotionally.

We literally tip over, falling into the water half clothed, the wrenching difference between being incredibly aroused by her words and breasts and the sudden onslaught of wet, buoyant water jarring.

A mouthful enters me and I find my footing, pushing up and spitting at the same time.

“Oh, no! You swallowed! How awful!”

Said no guy, ever.

“Andrew, do you know what’s in this water?”

I roll my tongue around in my mouth. “Salt water?”

“Semen!”

“I haven’t even come yet!”

“Not
your
semen!” she shouts, sputtering, wiping her face, displaying those gorgeous globes. “There is whale sperm in the water.”

Huh?

“Whale sperm?”

“It’s supposed to have anti-aging properties.”

“Says who?” I ask, eyes crawling over her face, taking her in. We’re in three feet of water, and her knees are bent, arms under water. Those breasts bob like two little tugboats waiting for a big boat to come along and get pulled into harbor.